Exploring new realms or losing touch? Assessing public beliefs about tourism in the Metaverse-a big-data approach

Purpose. The Metaverse is rapidly reshaping our understanding of tourism, yet the public perception of this new domain remains largely uncharted empirically. This paper builds on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Diffusion of Innovations Theory (DIT) to fill this gap, offering crucial insights that could inform scholars and practitioners in both the tourism and technology sectors. Design/methodology/approach. Using a big-data approach, we applied machine learning to scrape comments made by social media users on recent popular posts or videos related to tourism in the Metaverse from three prominent social media platforms. The cleaning process narrowed down 15,461 comments to 2,650, which were then analysed using thematic, emotion and sentiment analysis techniques. Findings. The thematic analysis revealed that virtual tourism evokes a complex range of public beliefs. While many express awe and excitement toward its immersive capabilities, others remain sceptical about authenticity compared to physical travel. Additional themes show people draw comparisons to real-world tourism, discuss technology’s role, and note educational value and novelty. However, some comments raise concerns about potential societal harms, exploitation, and mental health impacts. Sentiment analysis found over half of the comments positive, though some were negative. Emotion analysis showed contentment, happiness, and excitement as most frequent, though sadness, worry, and loneliness also featured. Overall, perceptions of Metaverse tourism encompass enthusiasm yet substantial ambivalence. Originality/value. This study is one of the first to comprehensively analyse public discussions on Metaverse tourism. It takes TAM and Rogers’s DIT a step further and provides fresh insights into how these theories can be employed in the emerging field of Metaverse tourism. The themes revealed new conceptual insights into multidimensional factors shaping public beliefs about Metaverse tourism and thus informing scholarly research on virtual interaction and technology acceptance regarding Metaverse tourism. Additionally, the results can help tourism providers, platforms, and marketers address salient public beliefs and sentiments/attitudes in developing marketing offerings, experiences, and communications. Over time, this analysis methodology can be used to track the evolving public perceptions of Metaverse tourism.